Malaysia Airlines crash: This could not get much worse for Moscow

Senior US officials have confirmed that Flight MH17 was indeed shot down by a surface-to-air missile, killing all 295 on board, but disagree on whether it came from Ukrainian or Russian soil. Either way, this is about as bad as it could get for Moscow.

After months of sponsoring a covert war in Ukraine’s borders, it looks increasingly plausible – though far from certain – that one of their proxies might be responsible for the biggest act of terror in modern European history (even the Madrid train bombing of 2004 killed fewer people, with 191 fatalities).

Here are five pieces of very important context:

1. Separatist, pro-Russian rebels do not have aircraft. Therefore it is unlikely, though not beyond doubt, that the Ukrainian military would be trying to shoot down aircraft (Ukraine did accidentally shoot down a Russian airliner in 2001, although that was under rather different conditions).

2. Russia has provided extensive military assistance to rebels, including “tanks and other heavy weapons”. Russian special forces have also, reportedly, been operating alongside rebels – and presumably given them assistance in operating more sophisticated military equipment.

3. Rebels seized the A-1402 military base two weeks ago, which – according to a separatist leader – was “an anti-aircraft missile forces facility equipped with Buk mobile surface-to-air missile systems” (SAM), exactly the sort that would be needed to target a civilian airliner above 30,000 feet (shoulder-launched systems can’t get that high).

4. My RUSI colleague Igor Sutyagin, monitoring social media, has pointed out that “Ukrainian rebel force had been spotted just hours earlier with a Buk at Torez, a village close to the site where the plane came down”. A reporter for the Associated Press also reported seeing a Buk at Snizhne, which is extremely close to Torez (17 minutes without traffic, Google Maps tells me; presumably a little slower if you’re lugging around large missiles).

Simply put, this means rebels did have the means to bring down MH17 – although we can’t say whether these launchers were the same that were allegedly taken from Ukraine’s base.

5. As David Blair points out, two Ukrainian military aircraft have been shot down in the past four days alone. It’s unclear whether SAMs or other aircraft took these down, but it seems exceptionally unlikely that the Ukrainians would have brought down two of their own planes in quick succession. It is far likelier to have been rebels, or Russia itself. Neither is reassuring.

In addition to these five reasonably solid pieces of information, we can add some other, less certain bits. A Ukrainian rebel leader boasted of having taken down an aircraft immediately after MH17 was targeted, though he thought it was a Ukrainian transport aircraft. In his chilling words: “In the district of Torez an An-26 was just shot down. It crashed somewhere near the Progress mine. We warned them not to fly in our skies.”

Moreover, Ukrainian security services have produced what they claim are intercepted conversations between rebels, including one in which a rebel tells a Russian military intelligence officer that they have shot down a plane. Naturally, Kiev has an interest in pinning the blame on Moscow, so it’s worth treating this particular claim with skepticism until more information comes to light.

It is possible that this is all a giant coincidence, and that a hapless Ukrainian SAM unit mistook a civilian airliner for an invading Russian fighter at precisely the same time as rebels were operating SAM units in the same area.

Nevertheless, all these signs point in an exceptionally ominous direction for Moscow. Rebels, whom they have aided, abetted, and armed for months appear to have perpetrated a mass casualty attack just as the US is tightening sanctions against Russia for its role in destabilising Ukraine.

Washington has struggled to persuade Europe to get united behind the pressure on Russia, not least because some states – notably Germany – have strong economic ties to Moscow, and are wary of shredding those. As more evidence comes to light, and particularly if Russia is found to have had any involvement with those units in possession of the launcher, then this could be a catalysing moment for Europe and a game-changer for Ukraine.